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Must one make up the twenty-ninth day of Ramadan after tasting or smelling a medicine used to treat skin blemishes, knowing that this feeling might be a whisper from Shaytan (waswas), and will the fasting of the six days of Shawwal be accepted in this case?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The taste or smell that a fasting woman finds in her throat or stomach after applying oil to her skin is likely either a mere delusion or a reality. In either case, her fast remains valid, and she is not required to make up for it. This is because there is no text indicating that applying oil to the skin and then detecting its taste or smell invalidates the fast. This situation does not fall under the meaning of what is explicitly stated to be an invalidator of the fast. It is akin to perfumes, incense, and oils, which a fasting person is not prohibited from using. Many jurists have explicitly stated that if a fasting person tastes medicine without ingesting it, it does not cause any harm to the fast.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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